


Twelve Hours: Queerplatonic Do-over

by another_Hero



Series: Twelve Hours [2]
Category: Ocean's (Movies), Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: F/F, Friends to friends, I think there's a little drinking in it and some eating, it's a queerplatonic rewrite, queerplatonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-27 00:18:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15674196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/another_Hero/pseuds/another_Hero
Summary: “What were you and Nine Ball talking about?”Lou gave a smile that looked like a laugh. “Conspiracy theory.”“Will it give me weird dreams?”Lou made a considering face.“You can’t just say you were talking about a conspiracy theory with Nine Ball and then not tell me what it is.”“Oh, it’s not that good. She thought we were dating.”---The original version of this fic bugged me for reasons, and one of the reasons was Debbie insisting their relationship was platonic only to change her mind. New version: she doesn't change her mind! But she does talk to Lou about her feelings! Same great banter, less gross kissing! Most of the text is exactly the same.





	Twelve Hours: Queerplatonic Do-over

8 PM

Lou walked in with a shopping bag in one hand, a helmet in the other, and cheeks more red than rosy. “New York is hell,” she called. It was a common declaration of Lou’s throughout the winter, though she demurred anytime Debbie suggested she move elsewhere.

“Serves you right for going out on New Year’s Eve,” Debbie said, but Lou was up the stairs by now; she could hear water running into the bath. After an hour or so, when Debbie was hungry and there was no sign of Lou coming downstairs, she put all of last night’s takeout containers in the microwave, piled them onto a pair of plates, grabbed an assortment of flatware and chopsticks from a drawer, and headed upstairs. “Lou?” she called.

“In the bath.”

Debbie walked through her room into the steamy jack-and-jill bathroom they didn’t really both need to keep using. She set both the plates on the edge of the tub, and Lou sat up to look through the boxes and pick a plate. She switched a few boxes, Debbie switched a couple back, and then Lou leaned back in the tub and Debbie sat on the counter to eat.

“So what’d you get?”

Lou looked up from her food. “Pad sie ew?”

Debbie rolled her eyes. “Shopping.”

“Oh.” Lou grinned. “You’ll see.”

“Really? A secret?”

“Describing it just wouldn’t do it justice,” Lou said, feigning disappointment. She sank back into the bath, raising her legs and crossing them against the wall, and took another bite.

“Can we agree to boycott midnight if they’re playing Madonna?”

“I don’t think you can boycott midnight.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know that Daphne’s going to play Madonna, but I can fix up her playlist.”

Daphne was having a New Year’s party, just for the eight of them. Constance had suggested a string of famous people as additional guests; Daphne had never met most of them, and insisted the others wouldn’t be able to handle the team. Debbie was looking forward to seeing everyone, but she dreaded venturing out on New Year’s Eve.

Lou set her plate aside and flicked the lever with her foot to drain some of the water from the tub, then added more hot water. Apparently she was going to be here awhile.

Debbie stayed in the bathroom—it was so much warmer than the rest of the loft, and she liked the company—until Lou decided it was time to wash her hair, and then she took the dishes and the trash downstairs so she could clean up in time to claim the shower.

 

“Okay, but what are you wearing?” Debbie called into Lou’s room. She was blowing her hair dry, and, when Lou looked up, wearing a towel.

“I think you should go in that. Rose’ll start a new line.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh, baby,” said Lou, putting a finger at the V of her plain, nude bra, biting her lip, fluttering her eyelashes, the whole nine, “I got it just for you. So glad you noticed.”

“I  _mean_ ,” Debbie continued, rolling her eyes, “are you dressing more like we’re going to a  _party_  or more like we’re going to our friend’s house?”

“Do you have to ask?”

“Fair enough.”

“Anyway, you won’t be more overdressed than Daphne, and you won’t be more underdressed than Constance,” Lou said, frowning into her shopping bag, turning back to her closet, looking through the shirts. Debbie turned her head to the other side and entertained a brief daydream of cutting her hair off, shorter than Lou’s, into something that would dry itself in minutes or get blown out just as fast. When she turned back, Lou had changed her nude bra for a black lace one, tied this black slip of either necktie or scarf around her neck, and laid out something dark on the bed. Debbie’s hair was dry by now, probably, but Lou was stepping back and forth in the low light, flipping through her button-up shirts in a perfunctory way that suggested she’d already flipped through them several times, pulling out a pair of socks. Debbie turned the hair dryer off and went back into her room, leaving both doors open. It was a dress night for her, New Year’s Eve. She pulled out a black beaded thing, long sleeves, short skirt, and she pulled out an old dress, from before prison, dark green and sleeveless and velvet. She wasn’t sure it was her look anymore, but this would be the day for it.

She held them both up for Lou. “Which one?”

Lou looked up over her shoulder. “Put them on.”

Debbie took the towel off, put on underwear, and hunted down a strapless bra—the black dress had a wide neck. She slid it over her head. It was heavy, and it was a lot for a party with friends, but she felt like she owned the entire world.

When she turned to the bathroom again, Lou was already looking at her. “I like it,” she said. “Do you have a choker?”

“Ew, no.”

“Shame,” said Lou. “The other one?”

Debbie pulled off the black dress and, after evaluating the green one, pulled off the bra as well, and she unzipped the green dress and stepped into it and zipped it up the back again. It was easy to wear, this dress; she’d been worried it might not fit anymore, but it slid over her like a pair of hands. She smoothed it down, then up again, correcting for the velvet, and she turned to the bathroom door.

Lou was leaning on her own doorframe, now in a pair of wine-red pants, and she was smiling, and the smile was gentler than Lou’s usual look of satisfaction. It threw Debbie off her game; she brought her hands to the front of her waist, resisting the urge to run them down the dress again, twisting her fingers in each other.

“That one,” Lou said.

“Yeah?” Debbie turned in front of the mirror, checking.

“You look like yourself. In both of them, but I think this one will surprise the girls.”

“Tights?”

“Stockings.”

“Who’m I trying to impress?” Debbie protested, but she didn’t want a line at her waist under the smooth dress, so she conceded and found a pair of black stockings in the drawer. She took a sweater from the closet, because sleeveless in December was better in concept, and she picked a coat, and she selected a pair of shoes and tossed them over by the coat, and she put on a string of knotted pearls.

She heard or felt Lou walk into the room behind her and turned. “Tie or no tie?” Lou asked.

“Holy shit, Lou, where do you even find something like this?” Lou, in her wine-red and gold-embroidered three-piece suit with a black tie tucked into the vest, raised her eyebrows and smirked.

Debbie walked over and pulled the tie off, only realizing partway through that the gesture might be more intimate than she’d intended. Too late now. “No tie,” she said, holding the thing in her fist where the red of the suit met the cream of Lou’s chest. “Gold.”

Lou’s face bloomed, and she was already disappearing through the door again.

Debbie got her makeup on—Lou had done hers while Debbie showered—and sat on her bed with a book, but she was too antsy with the upcoming party to read, so she walked back into Lou’s room and watched her partner  _continue_  to go through her genuinely absurd jewelry box. For her part, Debbie voiced every opinion that entered her mind.

“Who asked you?” said Lou, but she wore the ones Debbie argued for, the mix of thicker and thinner chains, the single pearl as a pendant.

“Okay,” Debbie said when Lou finally struck a pose, “shoes?”

“How did I even dress myself for  _seven years_?” Lou asked, but toothlessly, and she squatted to unbuckle a pair of monk-strap shoes while Debbie went to slide her feet into her own heels, pulled her coat over her arm, and met Lou—now covered in leopard print, which she really should have expected—in the hall. They would be taking Lou’s bike to Daphne’s; no one wanted to try to get a cab on New Year’s Eve, and owning a club had cured Lou of the desire to be drunk pretty much of the time.

When Lou looked at her, her face fell into the same smile as earlier, the sweet one that made Debbie worry she was going to trip down the stairs. “Did something happen in this dress that I’m not remembering?”

“What?”

“Your face.”

Lou raised her eyebrows coolly.

“Never mind.”

“You’re just, you’re wearing a  _color_.”

“So?” Debbie wasn’t sure how she’d gotten defensive about this, but here she was.

“So nothing. Looks nice.”

 “Oh. Thanks.” Debbie put her coat on. “Let’s go.”

 

11 PM

 “Hey Lou?”

“Mm?”

“Can you get my dress unstuck from my sweater?” Debbie leaned forward. “It keeps pulling when I move.”

Lou slid her hand up Debbie’s dress until it came to the zipper pull and freed it from a loop. “It’s probably going to get stuck again,” she said.

Debbie took the sweater off and stood to put it with her jacket. “It’s warm in here,” she said. “Thanks.” She didn’t go back to sit with Lou and Tammy after she hung it up; she got up to see what Nine Ball and Constance were looking at, which turned out to be a video on Nine Ball’s phone of a bunch of different toddlers falling down, and then she went for a new drink and thanked Daphne for the party, and then she went to talk to Amita, who hadn’t been around much lately, about her family and her new life without them. Amita was gushing about the coffee in Vietnam when Constance declared, loudly, that there would be dancing.

“Dancing?” said Daphne. “There are only eight of us.” All of them were talking in her living room and kitchen. Debbie could hardly even hear the music that was playing.

“Eight people is enough to  _dance_ ,” said Constance, and she turned up the volume, and then she said, “Dude, what is this?” and changed the playlist. Then she walked over by the coffee table, grabbed Nine Ball, and started dancing. Nine Ball sort of joined her.

“So, dance?” Debbie asked Amita, making the kind of face that said it really was a question, and a skeptical one at that.

“Why not? It’s New Year’s Eve.”

“That’s RIGHT,” Constance said, and Debbie took the excuse to step out of her high heels, and then she grabbed one of Amita’s hands and led her to the corner of the room that appeared to have been designated the dance floor. Constance coaxed Daphne into joining them—it didn’t take much—and Rose, who was a terrible dancer, and the six of them danced through a couple tracks of whatever Constance liked before Debbie decided she would go sit down. She liked dancing well enough, but she didn’t know any of this music, and she thought it would be funnier to watch the others. But then Nine Ball went to retrieve Tammy, and Lou was up and moving too, and Debbie wasn’t watching, but she knew when Lou was behind her, and she was about to turn when a pair of hands landed on the velvet on her hips.

She turned around, not really dancing anymore, leaned in to ask in Lou’s ear. “Do you know this music?”

Lou laughed.

“Next time, get us old friends. I want to be the cool one.”

“Hey, at least you’re the hot one.”

Debbie put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows. “Apparently only one of us has seen Nine Ball this evening.”

“What?” Nine Ball called.

“You look hot,” said Debbie.

“And you’re telling Lou about it? Don’t get weird.”

“You do,” said Constance.

“Well, yeah.”

Debbie grinned at Lou as she turned back to the others. She danced with Constance, and then she tried to sit down, but Constance would not permit it. So she danced in the group of them, and she danced with Tammy, and then—inevitably—at a couple minutes to midnight, the track changed to Vogue.

Debbie glared at Daphne.

“It’s tradition,” Daphne said with a shrug.

“It was only funny one time!” But everyone else was delighted, and Debbie hadn’t been serious about boycotting midnight just because Daphne wanted to ring it in with a song she didn’t like, but off beside her, Lou was slipping out to the balcony. Debbie followed.

Lou was sitting on the bench by the time Debbie got outside, looking out. She was off to one side, arm resting along the back, so she must have expected Debbie to join her.

“You know I was joking, right?”

“Yet here we are. Aren’t you cold?”

“Not yet. Did you talk to Amita? I feel like I haven’t seen her in ages.”

“No, but she looks good. Relaxed.”

 “Getting out of mom’s house is a hell of a drug.”

“I’d have guessed getting laid,” Lou said.

“Same thing.”

“In her case.”

Debbie sighed and leaned into Lou. “It’s nice to see everybody, but I want to go home.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“But to go home, we have to go inside, and they’d all try to stop us.”

“You could always jump.”

“You’d have to go first so I’d have something to land on.”

It wasn’t Debbie and Lou’s first New Year’s together. When the unevenly-timed countdowns started all around them, Lou swung around to crouch in front of Debbie, but they counted with their own crew and waited for their friends inside to shout “Happy New Year!” before leaning together for a kiss. They had a second of softness—they had maybe four seconds of softness, with Lou’s hand on her back—before Lou drew back, held out a gallant hand, and said, “We can go now, if you can face the crowd.”

They said their goodbyes. “I’m old!” Debbie insisted when Daphne tried to get her to stay. “I get tired easy!”  

Amita glanced pointedly at the window before hugging Debbie, who had decided years ago to accept that Amita hugged, and asked a quiet, “Was that a—”

“ _That_  was standard New Year’s operating procedure since the 90s, give or take about seven years.”

“You’re serious.”

“Something wrong with me kissing the love of my life?”

Amita rolled her eyes. “You’re hopeless. You’re both hopeless.”

“Look, if you’re making fun of me for who I kissed at midnight, that definitely means you got stuck with Rose.”

“Debbie!” But Debbie could feel Lou’s eyes on her back, so she wished Amita a safe flight—she wasn’t sure where Amita was going, or when, but there’d be a flight eventually—and slid her arms into the sweater Lou was holding out for her, then, once she had gotten that on properly, into the coat Lou was now holding out for her. Amita made a face at her across the room.

“Thanks. I’m ready.”

“Shoes?”

“See, if you didn’t remind me, I could have just  _not_  put my heels back on tonight, and then Daphne could have suddenly become the proud owner of some very pretty but unfortunately pinchy Manolos,” Debbie said, and she would have kept talking except that she had to pay attention to the buckle to get it fastened. Lou pulled over a chair, though she was looking away by the time Debbie sat in it, pulled into a conversation with Nine Ball. “Thanks,” Debbie said anyway. With Lou occupied, she let Tammy start a conversation with her, which was a mistake.

“That was some New Year’s kiss,” Tammy said, straight off.

“Did Amita say something to you?”

“Debbie, this apartment is like half windows.”

“Lou and I always kiss on New Year’s.”

“For that long?”

“Hey, honey,” Debbie said, for Tammy’s benefit, wrapping her arm around Lou’s waist, for Tammy’s benefit, and tapping her lapel with the other, “you ready to go?”

“Ready,” said Lou, and she stepped back, not forward, securing Debbie’s arm on her waist, folding her arm across her own body to take Debbie’s hand in hers. When they got in the hall, she didn’t let go, but she said, “What was that with Tammy?”

“Nothing,” said Debbie, “she just—she made a joke, so I had to make a better one.”

“So your best joke was leaving the party with me, who you live with.”

“No, I—”

“You're not as funny as you think you are.”

They stepped into the elevator, and only then did they unlink themselves to turn around. Debbie pulled her hair into a braid for motorcycle purposes, and Lou handed over her helmet.

 

2 AM

Debbie couldn’t sleep. This was not, in itself, anything unusual, but she was aggravated that her friends had managed to get to her. She didn’t want to date Lou, she never had, but she’d been thinking more lately about how much she wanted to stay with Lou, and how little interest she had in almost anyone else. Debbie should have been asleep. It would have been a better use of time.

Lou was coming up the stairs. Debbie didn’t know how to talk about this—about wanting to be with Lou, but no other way than the way they were. Still, she could go over there. There must be a reason she could go over there.

When she got to Lou’s open door, her partner was pulling a tank top up her arms. “Yeah?” she said, pausing with the tank top around her shoulders, looking worried.

“I just, I was going to make some tea,” Debbie said. “Can’t sleep. Do you want some?”

Lou looked around, like she was debating whether she needed to honor her commitment to her bed. “Sure.”

So Debbie went downstairs and boiled some water and put some chamomile in a pot and poured the water over it, and she fiddled with her hair, doing up a braid and undoing it, until Lou came downstairs looking ready for bed. Debbie poured two mugs of tea from the pot. She was being ridiculous, asking her down here in the middle of the night like otherwise she might leave before morning. Lou had never once left her; she didn’t have to say a word and Lou would still be here in five years, she would bet on it. She set the mugs on the table and sat in one of the chairs, pulling her knees up in front of her with her heels on the seat.

“So what’s wrong?” Lou sounded genuine. Maybe it was the hour; it was late enough that you could say impossible things now and then, if you remembered them tomorrow, make them true.

“Because I can’t sleep?”

“Because you admitted you can’t sleep.”

Debbie blew on her tea and tried a sip.

“Suit yourself.”

“What were you and Nine Ball talking about?”

Lou gave a smile that looked like a laugh. “Conspiracy theory.”

“Will it give me weird dreams?”

Lou made a considering face.

“You can’t just say you were talking about a conspiracy theory with Nine Ball and then not tell me what it is.”

“Oh, it’s not that good. She thought we were dating.”

“Have none of these women celebrated New Year’s Eve before?”

“What’s that?”

“Amita and Tammy were both weird about it too.”

“Oh, hence the very affectionate exit joke?”

Debbie gave a big, slow nod. “I guess it was less a joke and more…”

When Debbie stopped talking, Lou didn’t fill in an answer

“More just, like, telling Tammy I’m not scared of her.”

Lou chuckled. “Is anyone scared of Tammy?”

“You ask that like you’re not scared of Tammy.”

“I’m breaking up with you.”

“Your loss, baby.” Debbie drank her tea and looked right back when Lou looked at her. “Did you ever think about it? Back when?” Her tone was light. It wasn’t what she wanted, but maybe it was a way in.

“I told Nine Ball, no sex and no boundaries, we just skipped straight to married on day one.”

Debbie tilted her head and shrugged in what was ultimately a gesture of agreement.

“I mean, sure I did. But I was proving myself, and then we were….”

In a routine. Already a matched pair. The thing they still were now, really. “Yeah.”

“So are you thinking about it now?” Lou was the one with her eyes in her cup now, and Debbie could have gone all night without getting that direct. Lou’s eyes snapped up to meet hers, and Debbie didn’t know how to say it, but she tried to make an answer that was true but not embarrassing.

“I don’t want to _date_.”

“But?”

Debbie sighed. There was no way she had to say this, except that Lou had asked. “But I don’t want anyone else. I don’t even _like_ anyone else. I really—” She wasn’t looking at Lou. “I really love you, and you’re the only partner I want. And I don’t think I’m asking for anything,” and why was she talking so fast all of a sudden, “I don’t need anything to be different, I just.”

Lou tilted her head. Her face was gentle. “That’s been keeping you awake?”

Debbie brought her cup to her face. Surely Lou could tell that she was already embarrassed.

“You don’t think I’m going to just,” said Lou, “find something else?”

“No,” said Debbie. It sounded ridiculous when Lou said it. It would have seemed ridiculous if she’d thought it herself. She wasn’t really concerned. “I don’t know why it’s bothering me.”

Lou nodded. “I don’t know a lot of people who live like this,” she said. “But it’s right for me.”

Debbie smiled. She almost laughed. She should have known that as weird as this was for her, it would be easy for Lou. “Thanks,” she said.

Lou let her breath out through her nose in something like a laugh, but she didn’t say anything dismissive or embarrassing.

“Okay,” said Debbie, standing up, rubbing Lou’s shoulder as she passed her on her way to the stairs, “it’s past my bedtime.”

“So am I going to wash these mugs then, or?”

“They’ll keep.”

5 AM

Lou’s door into the bathroom was open when Debbie woke up and went in there, and her light was on. Debbie stuck her head through the door. Lou was sitting in the center of her bed, the sheet over her bent knees. “Hey, what are you doing awake?” Debbie asked.

Lou looked up, surprised.

“Nothing,” said Lou, resting her crossed arms on her covered knees. “Just awake.”

“Can I turn your lights off?”

Lou shrugged and didn't move. “Sure.”

Debbie walked over to her. “Is something wrong?”

“Not at all.”

“Please tell me so I can stop worrying about it and fall back asleep.”

Lou reached out, and her hand landed somewhere near Debbie’s elbow; she stroked it with her thumb. “Nothing is wrong. Go to sleep. I’ll still be here in the morning.”

“Afternoon.”

“Probably.”

“Will you lie down?”

“What?”

“Just lie down.”

“You’re very irritating,” Lou said, though she obeyed.

Debbie pulled the sheet up over Lou’s shoulders, then the blanket from the foot of the bed. She sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed Lou’s back a few times. “Good night,” she said. “I’ll see you in the afternoon.”

“Did you check under the bed for monsters?” Lou’s arms were stretching up to press against the headboard, and her smile was self-satisfied, even though the joke wasn’t actually that good.

“I checked on top of the bed for monsters, and you’re not going to like what I found.”

Inertia kept her there, stroking Lou’s back on the edge of the bed, not at all inclined to move from her spot, until Lou said, “You know, you can just get in if you want.”

“Oh, I—I still have to pee.”

“Okay, well, don’t pine,” Lou said, propping her head on her hand with a truly majestic smirk.

“Go to sleep,” said Debbie, walking into the bathroom and closing the door. She could just get in. If she’d worried that Lou was going to draw a line between their lives, the worry was unfounded. So after she washed her hands the evening’s sweetness propelled her through Lou’s door instead of her own, turning off the lights, into the near side of Lou’s bed, and made her tuck her head into the skin not covered by Lou’s tank top. Lou’s arm came up over her back, and her thumb moved back and forth as Debbie inhaled, gratefully. Lou's bed, Lou's neck, Lou's lips briefly pressed to her forehead: it was as ordinary as anything.


End file.
